


The Case of the Ghostly Horseman

by Small_Hobbit



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:46:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Small_Hobbit/pseuds/Small_Hobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mrs Hudson complains about the ghost leaving its head on her kitchen table, Sherlock needs to solve the problem to restore peace to 221B.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Ghostly Horseman

**Author's Note:**

> This is a ghost story, but not one to be taken seriously. At all.
> 
> My thanks to notluvulongtime for being my beta.

“He’s back!” John Watson called out.

“Who is?” was Sherlock’s reply.

“Well, if it’s not him, the head looks remarkably similar.”

“You’re going to have to warn Mrs Hudson.”

“And say what, exactly?  We have a resident ghost who has a habit of going out without his head and has to come back for it once he’s remembered it?  I don’t want to frighten her.”

“Mrs Hudson is made of sterner stuff than you imagine.”

***

Later the same day, John welcomed a visitor.  “Come in, Greg, I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Thank you.  I can come back later if Sherlock’s got a client,” Greg Lestrade replied.

“No, there’s no-one else here.  Why did you think there was?”

“There’s a horse hitched to the railings outside.”

John peered out of the kitchen window and exchanged a glance with Sherlock, who had come to join him.

“What colour was the horse?” Sherlock asked.

“White.  Umm, almost translucent, I suppose.”

They were saved from further discussion by the sound of crashing from downstairs.  All three of them ran down to be confronted by Mrs Hudson apparently energetically bashing the kitchen chairs with her broom.

“Mrs Hudson, are you okay?” John asked.

“I have told him before not to leave his head on the kitchen table.  It’s most unhygienic and if he’s going to behave like that then he can go elsewhere.”

“Who?”

“The ghost, of course, dear.”

There was silence whilst Sherlock and John processed the fact that Mrs Hudson already knew about the ghost and his untidy habits.  Greg wondered whether he should consider arresting them all for the possession of hallucinogenic drugs.  Then he remembered that no-one else appeared to have seen the horse.

Sherlock was the first to break the silence.  “Mrs Hudson, do you happen to know who the ghost is, or rather was?”

She shook her head.

“Or why he’s here?” John added.

“I presume he’s come to see you to solve a case.  That’s why most people come here.”

“That is ridiculous,” Sherlock said.  “What sort of case would a ghost want solving?”

“Maybe it’s to do with his death,” Greg suggested.

“Why don’t you go and ask him?  I think he’s gone back upstairs.  And while you’re about it, you can tell him that if I find his head lying around again I _will_ put it in the dustbin.”

The three men went back upstairs. 

Greg sank into the settee and said “Would you mind if I took my shoes off, they’re really uncomfortable, I don’t know why I bought them.”

“No, good ahead,” said John.  “Make yourself at home.  Everyone else seems to do so.”

He pointed to the ghost who had sat down on one of the chairs and placed his head on John’s laptop.

“Right,” Sherlock sighed.  “I suppose we shall have to find out why he’s come to see us.  Can you talk, or write?”

The ghost shrugged his shoulders.

“Where do you suggest we start?” Sherlock turned to John.

“Why doesn’t it keep its head on its body, like any reasonable person?” Greg muttered.  The ghost had come to sit next to him on the settee and he was feeling rather unsettled by its headless nature.

“Firstly, he’s not a reasonable person, because if he was, he wouldn’t be here; and secondly, he’s a ‘he’ not an ‘it.’  Surely you can see that.”

“My mother always used to complain that I would forget my head if it wasn’t firmly screwed on,” John commented.

“That is not helpful.  Wait a minute, Lestrade; what did you say about your shoes?”

“I was taking them off because they were uncomfortable.  You didn’t object.”

“Why should I?  But what if our friend here takes his head off because it’s uncomfortable?”

“That’s ridiculous,” John replied.

Sherlock stared at the ghost’s body and then at his head.  The ghost seemed to sit up straighter.  Greg thought about moving to sit elsewhere but thought the others would call him a wuss if he did.

Sherlock looked triumphant.  “It’s not your head, is it?”

The ghost practically bounced up and down on the settee.  Greg retreated further into the corner.

“Then what’s he doing with it?”

“Surely that’s obvious.  He needed a head to come to find me.  So he took the nearest one he could find.”

“Why did he want to find you in the first place?” John asked.

“I am surrounded by idiots.  It’s obvious.  He wants me to find his own head.”

The ghost leapt up and did a passable jig.  It then headed out of the room towards the stairs. 

The three men all shouted “Take your head with you!”

The ghost returned, stuck the head on its neck, waved and departed again.

Once they were sure that the ghost had truly departed and Greg had looked out of the window and confirmed that the horse, too, had gone; John took three beers from the fridge.  He and Greg turned to Sherlock who was frantically surfing the web.

“Have you found anything yet?” Greg asked.

“What age do you reckon that ghost was?” Sherlock replied.

“Thirty, thirty-five?  It’s a bit difficult to age a ghost,” John answered.

“Not relevant.  I meant which age did he come from?”

“I was going to say Civil War, ‘cos that’s when I always expect them to come from.  But, thinking about it, and I’m not sure why, I’m guessing early Victorian.”  Greg looked thoughtful.

“My conclusion exactly.  I think we can assume that our friend did not come to a peaceful end.”

“But to be separated from his head implies more than just a violent death,” John continued.  “Are you thinking this was a battlefield death?”

“Unlikely.  From the way he comes and goes, I think he was buried in London.”

“Which leaves what?  An explosion?”

“That wouldn’t explain why just the head was buried elsewhere.  I think this was more likely the result of a judicial execution.”

“But we hanged people; it was the French who guillotined them.” Greg objected.

“I see what you’re thinking,” said John.  “Once they had been executed, some of the bodies were given to the medical authorities for dissection, for the purposes of teaching anatomy.”

“And there were those who wanted to find how the criminal brain differed from that of a normal person,” Sherlock added.

“So what you’re saying is that it was possible for various parts of the body to be buried in different places?” Greg asked.

“Exactly.”  Sherlock checked the time on his phone.  “They’ll be closed now, so tomorrow morning we’ll go to Barts and look at their records.”

“We?”

“It’ll be quicker with the three of us.  It’s Lestrade’s day off and you’re not due at the clinic.”

John looked mutinous. 

“And the sooner we find the head, the happier Mrs Hudson will be,” Sherlock added.

***

The following morning, the three of them trawled through the records in Barts and by lunch time they had a fairly comprehensive list of the burial sites used for the bodies after the representatives of medical science had finished with them.  They reduced the list to three main contenders.

“So, what do we do now?” John asked.

“We photograph all three sites and show the ghost the pictures next time he calls,” Sherlock replied.  “To save time, we take one site each and meet back at Baker Street.”

They separated and Greg headed towards his designated burial spot.  When he arrived he discovered two constables looking over the area.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“There’s been reports of disturbances here all week, sir.  We can’t see anything, so we’re assuming it’s just kids.”

“Or homeless people looking for somewhere quiet?”

“No, sir.  Robinson spoke to some of them yesterday, but they said they won’t go in there as it’s haunted.”

“Okay.  Well, now that I’m here, I’ll go and take a look.  You two can report back and then continue on your beat.”

Lestrade turned the corner into the overgrown area and thought that he could hear noises.  He was about to shout out when he realised that what he could see was two ghostly bodies fighting over a single head.

Mentally fortifying himself with the thought that if Mrs Hudson could do it, so could he, he marched over and picked the head up.  Instantly the fight stopped.

“Right.  Whose head is this?”

Neither ghost laid claim to it.

“Doesn’t belong to either of you then?”

Greg thought he could detect shrugged shoulders.

“Who had it last?”

One ghost pointed at the other.

“In which case you can have it this time.”

He handed the head over and the ghost triumphantly put it on.

“We are trying to find your head,” Greg continued, “er, heads,” he amended.  “So, if someone comes over to Baker Street, we’ll see what we can do.”

Greg left the ghosts to sort themselves out and headed back to Baker Street.  There were problems on the tube, so the journey took him a while.  By the time he arrived, he noted that the horse was back.

Mrs Hudson let him in and said “I don’t know what Sherlock did this morning, but it’s getting worse.”

Greg went up the stairs thinking that it might not all be Sherlock’s fault.  Nevertheless he was surprised to see three ghosts sitting side by side on the settee.  Judging from the way one was holding his head on his shoulders whilst his neighbour tried pulling it off, he concluded that they were the two he had met earlier.  The third had a head that was apparently properly attached, but he was missing an arm.

Sherlock grumbled, “We’ve ALL been waiting for you.”

“There are problems on the tube.”

“Should have come by horse,” John commented.

“Haha, very funny.  Anyway, you didn’t need me – this lot come from my site.”

Sherlock nodded.  He produced a large scale map which he laid on the table and then the photos that he and John had taken.  Carefully, he marked on the map the three burial sites and also their current location in Baker Street.  The whole procedure took some time because the two ghosts had to keep swapping the head and the transactions were anything but amicable.  Eventually the three ghosts seemed satisfied, stood up and left.

“What happens now?” John asked.

“We wait,” said Sherlock.  “I rather imagine that they’ll be back if neither site proves to be the right one.”

***

It was approaching 11 that night and Greg was thinking that he should be heading home.

John looked at him, “I’m very curious ...”

“So am I.”

“In which case,” said Sherlock “Shall we take a trip to Lestrade’s site?”

The other two swiftly agreed.  Sherlock hailed a cab and on their arrival, Greg led the way into the site.  He turned the corner and stopped abruptly.

“Bloody hell!”

There were approximately twenty ghosts, in various states of wholeness getting into a rough line.  Greg pushed himself against the wall and motioned to John and Sherlock to do the same.  The ghosts proceeded to march/shamble/hobble past them.  Greg estimated that at least six of them were headless and were walking along with their hands on the shoulders of the ghost in front.  At the head of the column was the one-armed ghost they had met earlier.

Cautiously, the three men followed the ghostly column.  The route they took led them through back streets to the burial site which John had photographed earlier.  Once there, the ghosts - at least those of them capable of doing so - gave a whoop of joy and started to scrabble around in the undergrowth.  They emerged with a selection of limbs, together with a number of heads.  There was much hilarity as the ghosts tried to establish which body part belonged to which ghost.

At this point, a police car drew up.  Greg went to greet the occupants.

“It’s okay; there’s nothing happening here.”

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, we ought to investigate; there’s been a number of complaints.”

The first officer headed into the burial site, but emerged faster than he had entered.

“I can’t have seen ghosts there, can I?”

“No, you must be mistaken.  As I said, there’s nothing there to worry about.”  Greg was adamant.

The police car departed, leaving Greg to heave a sigh of relief.

“At least they didn’t ask us what we were doing here,” he said.

John - who had been to check on the progress of the ghosts - returned, smiling.

“In the words of some of your colleagues, Greg, ‘Please move along; there’s nothing to see here.’  It should be safe for us to go home.”

“Thank goodness that’s all over,” Greg said.

“Unless one of them believes he was wrongly executed,” Sherlock muttered.

“Please don’t tempt fate.”


End file.
